Events

USQ Update

USA Team Head Coach and National Team Coordinator

Effective immediately, Michael “Yada” Parada will join USQ as the USA Team Head Coach. Amanda Dallas will join USQ as National Team Coordinator.

Photos by: Lindsay Marella and Matt Dwyer

As USA Team staff in the Membership Department, Michael "Yada" Parada and Amanda Dallas will be responsible for planning, organizing, and leading our national team to new heights. As previously announced in May, USQ is exploring a different form of team selection as well as a new team structure for the USA Team. More information will be available later this fall.

PARADA AS HEAD COACH

Michael “Yada” Parada began his quidditch career at Penn State University at the position of head coach. He held this role all three years he was on the team. During his tenure, Penn State saw the semifinals of the first Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship—falling to eventual champion Villanova University—and the bracket play of three World Cups.

Parada is the only player who has been selected for all three past iterations of the USA Team. He was a chaser on the 2012 gold medal team in Oxford, England, the 2014 gold medal team in Burnaby, Canada, and the 2016 silver medal team in Frankfurt, Germany.

Post-college, Parada created The Warriors alongside National Team Coordinator, Amanda Dallas. The Warriors have shown great recruitment ability, featuring graduates or current students of 25 separate universities at one point or another. In addition to working in tandem with Dallas to recruit, Parada has held the title of head coach all three seasons the team has existed and will continue to do so for the 2017-18 season. As head coach, Parada not only leads practices and one-on-one lessons but also creates workout and nutritional plans and study guides. On the field, Parada has led The Warriors to multiple Sweet 16 berths, tournament titles, a conference championship and a regional final.

Parada is also one of just two Major League Quidditch (MLQ) coaches—the other being fellow USA Team chaser Harry Greenhouse—that has been asked to return all three seasons. He is the only East Division coach to keep the decorated Boston Night Riders in range during the regular season and one of just four coaches to see the MLQ finals. Outside of coaching, Parada is a statistician for MLQ and the Rankings Editor for The Eighth Man. He spends extensive time consuming footage not only from US teams but international teams as well.

In the non-quidditch world, Parada is a Systems Engineer II responsible for overseeing multiple security systems, servers and workstations throughout New Jersey, while also working with multiple integrators from several companies and leading his own team of employees.

DALLAS AS NATIONAL TEAM COORDINATOR

Dallas started her quidditch career at New York University in 2011. She rose to the position of captain for the 2012-13 season, where she created a marketing campaign that drew in hundreds of new recruits and led NYU to the quarterfinals of the Northeast Regional Championship and bracket play of World Cup VI. After graduating in 2013, Dallas continued to work with college programs in the New York/New Jersey area, assisting with talent assessment, providing drills, and hosting summer workshops.

On the community side of things, Dallas co-founded The Warriors with Parada in 2014. The Warriors have seen the finals of a regional championship, won the USQ First Year Survival Award and reached bracket play of all three US Quidditch Cups attended. In addition to being a player and assistant captain, Dallas coordinates travel, orchestrates fundraisers, conducts community outreach, holds recruitment workshops, and generates partnership opportunities.

She also has a an impressive record as a tournament director. Oktoberfest Invitational, a product of The Warriors and Hofstra University, is entering its fourth rendition and is among the more consistent interregional tournaments each season. As a commissioner of MLQ, Dallas has played a key role in the planning and direction of three national championships and over 50 series across the US and Canada.

Outside of the sport, Dallas is the Director of Sales and Marketing at Grind, a chain of co-working spaces in New York City.

As national team coordinator, Dallas will be face of the team. She is responsible for the logistical organization of the USA Team and will also work on fundraising. She can be reached at amanda.dallas@usquidditch.org.

US Quidditch (USQ) is a magical 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to governing the sport of quidditch and advancing the sport by organizing events and programs that build community and empower all genders to compete together. Inspired by the Harry Potter novels, USQ serves athletes and fans, from sport-lovers to book-lovers and everything in between.